Who’s Behind 42 Abu Dhabi? Muhammed Khalid, Founder & CEO of AIREV
This month, we sat down with Muhammed Khalid, Founder and CEO of AIREV, the Abu Dhabi-based AI company behind School Hack and OnDemand, platforms collectively used by millions worldwide. Entirely self-taught on the technical side, Muhammed has built his career on shipping real products and learning from every setback. He shares how a hackathon at 42 Abu Dhabi turned into a committed partnership, and why the school’s peer-driven, no-curriculum model produces exactly the kind of talent the AI industry needs right now.
Could you please briefly introduce yourself and tell us more about your educational and professional background?
My name is Muhammed Khalid, and I am the Founder and CEO of AIREV. I studied Business in the UK, but my technical foundation is entirely self-taught: built by shipping products, breaking things, and learning from other builders. My journey into tech started from a young age, I’ve always been driven by the idea of building technology that millions of people could genuinely enjoy and benefit from. My first real entry point was Bitcoin and blockchain back in 2013. I was fascinated by the technology and put every bit of money I had into BTC at the time. That curiosity for emerging tech never left me.
After moving to the UAE, I kept building in the social and consumer tech space, failing plenty along the way, but taking something away from every setback. That led to School Hack in early 2023, an AI-powered learning companion that’s grown to over 4 million users across 140+ countries. From there we built OnDemand, an agentic AI operating system that lets developers and enterprises build, deploy, and scale AI applications through a low-code/no-code approach, now at 97k+ users globally.
Can you tell us more about the company you work in and what you do there?
AIREV is an AI-native company headquartered in Abu Dhabi, incorporated in ADGM. It is built around two arms: research focused on agentic AI systems, and a solutions arm that brings those innovations to market through our two flagship products.
OnDemand is our agentic AI operating system, a platform where anyone from developers to enterprises can build AI agents, connect tools, design workflows, and deploy production-grade solutions without deep engineering expertise. School Hack, on the other hand, is our consumer AI learning platform, now counting over 4 million users worldwide, helping students learn faster through AI-powered tutoring and study tools.
As CEO and Founder, I focus on the company’s vision, strategic partnerships, and ensuring that both products keep pushing what AI can actually do for real users.
How did you first come across 42? What did you think was particularly interesting about it?
We came across 42 Abu Dhabi shortly after launching the beta version of OnDemand. Our initial launch was catered to developers globally, and a big part of our go-to-market involved hosting hackathons at universities, giving engineering students the chance to build real AI agents and products on top of OnDemand. When we learned about the school’s structure, peer-to-peer learning, no teachers, no rigid curriculum, we were genuinely intrigued. That kind of environment produces exactly the type of talent the AI industry needs right now: self-driven problem solvers who think differently.
We decided to host a hackathon there to test that theory, and it turned out to be one of the most successful we’ve run. The students approached challenges in ways we hadn’t seen before, and what they shipped in such a short time was remarkable.
What were the motivations behind AIREV’s decision to partner with 42 Abu Dhabi?
Our motivation is two-fold.
First, talent. 42 Abu Dhabi gives us direct access to hands-on developers we can bring into OnDemand and recommend to partners building on our platform. As we scale, having a reliable pipeline of strong engineering talent is important.
Second, real-world hackathons. As mentioned previously, we see 42 as the ideal partner for solution-oriented hackathons where students tackle actual challenges that our enterprise partners are facing. Students get exposure to production-grade problems, we get fresh perspectives from some of the sharpest emerging engineers in the country.
Beyond that, partnering with 42 aligns with the UAE’s vision for becoming a global AI hub, and we want to help build that alongside institutions that are doing things differently.
In your opinion, what sets 42 apart from other coding schools?
A few things stand out.
The first is the interaction between students regardless of experience level. You see complete beginners working alongside more advanced peers, and everyone learns from each other. That dynamic is rare and valuable.
The second is the Piscine approach to selecting students. It’s intense, it’s demanding, and it filters for the qualities that actually matter: resilience, curiosity, and the ability to learn fast under pressure. It’s far more meaningful than traditional academic credentials.
And the third is the startup vibe. Walking into 42 doesn’t feel like walking into a school; it feels like walking into a tech company. Students are working on real projects, debating solutions, helping each other ship, it’s the kind of energy you’d find at a high-growth startup, and that mindset shapes the engineers it produces.
What are your hopes for the future of 42 in the UAE?
We hope to see students from 42 Abu Dhabi go on to develop some of the country’s and the region’s most impactful solutions. The talent is already there; the next step is seeing that talent translated into ventures, products, and innovations that put the UAE on the global tech map even more firmly than it already is.
We also hope the work ethic and collaborative culture we’ve already seen continues to grow. The students we’ve engaged with have an exceptional drive, and as the campus matures, we’d love to see even deeper collaboration, between students, between cohorts, and between 42 and companies like ours that are building the future of AI in the region.
A quick word to conclude our interview?
We’re extremely motivated and excited about our partnership with 42 Abu Dhabi. The energy, the talent, and the mindset we’ve experienced there align perfectly with what we’re building at AIREV. We look forward to running more hackathons, deepening our collaboration with the school, and building together, because the future of AI in this region will be shaped by exactly the kind of engineers 42 is producing.
